Patent Application
20140304028
In general, businesses may employ flow diagrams, e.g., business process diagram (BPD), to define a sequence of procedural steps to be performed to ensure smooth operation of business activities. For example, a business may employ a BPD that defines a home loan approval process, an insurance claim approval process, purchase order fulfillment process, and the like. Typically, businesses may implement these flow diagrams using standard business method modeling languages, such as, Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) and Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), to graphically illustrate steps and activities of a business method.
Unfortunately, conventional business method modeling languages may have limitations in real-world business applications, e.g., execution of one or more procedures out of sequence, bypassing certain activities, dynamically invoking and performing certain procedures, etc. These limitations are partly due to defining the process relationships in a static fashion at design time, e.g., process dependencies, statically defining the sequence of activities at design time, etc.
Accordingly, a need has arisen to facilitate modification to the execution sequence of a process, e.g., in a business process diagram (BPD), in a dynamic fashion. For instance, the execution of a BPD may be modified based on presence or absence of an activation signal at a specific processing node/gateway node (process) in the BPD, injection of an activation signal and/or a deactivation signal at a node, presence or absence of a deactivation signal at a node, etc. It is appreciated that processing nodes and gateway nodes may be referred to as a node throughout this application. Furthermore, it is appreciated that a signal, e.g., activation signal, deactivation signal, etc., may be a token, a message, a command, an indication, etc. It will become apparent to those skilled in the art after reading the detailed description that the embodiments described herein satisfy the above mentioned need.
According to various embodiments, systems and methods described herein provide a mechanism to dynamically modify the execution of a process, e.g., BPD, based on run-time activation and/or deactivation of a node, presence or absence of an activation signal and/or deactivation signal at a node, etc. In some embodiments, a process may include a plurality of nodes representing a sequence of steps and procedures in a flow, e.g., in a business method. For example, a node (e.g., the current node) of a BPD may be expecting two inputs from two immediately preceding nodes in the BPD (e.g., a first preceding node and a second preceding node). In such a scenario, when the current node receives a signal from the first preceding node, a determination is made whether to wait to receive a signal from the second preceding node prior to processing parameters at the current node, or to alternatively, process parameters associated with the current node in absence of receipt of a signal from the second preceding node.
In some embodiments, this determination whether to wait or whether to proceed with the processing may be made by performing a reverse traversal of the BPD. Traversing the BPD can be used to determine whether an activation signal can ever be received at the current node from the second preceding node or any other node preceding the second preceding node. That is, the BPD is traversed from the current node to the second preceding node and other nodes preceding the second preceding node to determine whether any of the preceding nodes is operable to generate an activation signal. The current node waits to receive an active signal from the preceding nodes before processing parameters at the current node if it is determined that the identified preceding node may generate an active signal for the current node. On the other hand, the current node may proceed with parameter processing if it is determined that the identified preceding node will not generate an activate signal for the current node. Accordingly, the processing at a given node is delayed only when needed and proceeds when it is not necessary to wait.
In some embodiments, new parameters may become available that were previously not available for a given node. Accordingly, it is desirable to re-execute the process for the node at which the new parameters become available. In some embodiments, an activate signal may be injected at a node of the BPD to invoke the execution of a node and succeeding nodes to process the newly available parameters. As such, the execution a BPD may be modified dynamically at runtime to appropriately account for changes in the BPD, e.g., changes in chronology of processing steps, availability of new parameters, etc.
In some embodiments, a method may comprise processing parameters at a current node of a plurality of nodes in a process flow diagram and receiving a signal at the current node from a first immediate preceding node of the plurality of nodes. In some embodiments, the first immediate preceding node may be connected to the current node. The method may further comprise determining whether the current node is connected to a second immediate preceding node of the plurality of nodes in the process flow diagram, and in response to determining that the current node is connected to the second immediate preceding node, determining whether to process parameters associated with the current node in absence of receipt of a signal from the second immediate preceding node or to wait to receive the signal from the second immediate preceding node prior to processing the parameters.
In some embodiments, the process flow diagram may be unstructured, and the unstructured process flow diagram may include a dependency between two branches within the process flow diagram. In some embodiments, the method may further include receiving the signal from the second immediate preceding node within a predetermined wait time period, and responsive to receiving the signal from the second immediate preceding node, processing the parameters associated with the current node. Then, the method may further include transmitting a signal from the current node to an immediate succeeding node of the plurality of nodes. In some embodiments, the transmitted signal from the current node may be an activation signal or a deactivation signal.
In some embodiments, the method may further include processing the parameters associated with the current node in response to a wait time exceeding a wait time period and further in absence of receiving the signal from the second immediate preceding node, and transmitting a signal from the current node to an immediate succeeding node of the plurality of nodes. In some embodiments, the transmitted signal from the current node may be an activation signal or a deactivation signal.
The method may further comprise, in some embodiments, in response to determining that the current node is connected to the second immediate preceding node and further in response to absence of receipt of the signal from the second immediate preceding node, traversing from the current node to the second immediate preceding node and further to nodes preceding the second immediate preceding node and connected thereto to identify a live node. In some embodiments, the method may further comprise waiting to receive a signal at the current node from the identified live node in response to determining that the identified live node is operable to generate an activation signal for the current node.
The method of may further include, in some embodiments, responsive to determining that the identified live node is inoperable to generate an activation signal for the current node, processing the parameters associated with the current node in absence of receiving the signal from the second immediate preceding node. In some embodiments, the method may also include receiving an activation signal being injected at a node preceding the current node, and re-processing parameters associated with the node preceding the current node being injected with the activation signal. In some embodiments, the node preceding the current node being injected with the activation signal may previously generated a deactivation signal.
In some embodiments, the method may further include processing parameters associated with the current node prior to the activation signal being injected to the node preceding the current node and transmitting a signal from the current node to an immediate succeeding node of the plurality of nodes. The transmitted signal from the current node may be an activation signal or a deactivation signal, in some embodiments. In some embodiments, the method may further include re-processing the parameters associated with the current node in response to the injection of the activation signal to the node preceding the current node and further in response to the re-processing generating an activation signal.
In some embodiments, the method may further include receiving signals at the current node from every immediate preceding node of the plurality of nodes connected to the current node, and in response to the activation signal being injected, waiting at the current node to receive an updated signal from the node preceding the current node being injected with the activation signal and further waiting at the current node to receive updated signals from nodes that connect the node being injected and the current node, and processing parameters associated with the current node in response to receiving the updated signals.
In some embodiments, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having stored thereon, computer executable instructions that, if executed by a processor causes the processor to perform a method comprising executing processes associated with a current node of a plurality of nodes of a process flow diagram and receiving an activation signal being injected at a node preceding the current node. The node preceding the current node being injected with the activation signal may previously generated a deactivation signal. In some embodiments, the method may further include responsive to receiving the activation signal being injected, executing processes associated with the node preceding the current node.
In some embodiments, the method may further include re-executing processes associated with the current node in response to the injection of the activation signal to the node preceding the current node and further in response to receiving an updated signal from nodes that connected the node being injected and the current node. The method may further include, in some embodiments, before the activation signal being injected, receiving signals at the current node from every immediate preceding node of the plurality of nodes connected to the current node, and in response to receiving signals at the current node from every immediate preceding node, traversing from the current node to nodes preceding the particular node to identify whether a node preceding the current node has been injected with the activation signal, and in response to determining that the node preceding the current node has been injected with the activation signal, determining whether to wait for updated signals to be received by the current node.
In some embodiments, the method may include in response to determining to wait for updated signals to be received by the current node and in response to receiving the updated signals, re-processing at the current node based on the updated signals. The method may further include waiting for the updated signals for a predetermined wait period, in some embodiments.
In some embodiments, a method may comprise receiving a signal at a current node of a plurality of nodes of a process flow diagram from a first immediate preceding node. The signal may be an activation signal or a deactivation signal. The method may further include in response to receiving the signal, determining whether the current node is connected to a second immediate preceding node of the plurality of nodes, and in response to determining that the current node is connected to the second immediate preceding node and in absence of receipt of a signal from the second immediate node, traversing from the current node to the second immediate preceding node and further to nodes preceding the second immediate preceding node connected thereto to identify a live node, and then determining whether the live node is operable to generate an activation signal for the current node.
In some embodiments, the method may include waiting to receive a signal at the current node from the identified live node in response to determining that the identified live node is operable to generate an activation signal for the current node. The method may further include, in some embodiments, responsive to determining that the live node is inoperable to generate an activation signal for the current node, executing processes associated with the current node in absence of receiving the signal from the second immediate preceding node. In some embodiments, the method may further include receiving an activation signal being injected at a node preceding the current node, and responsive to receiving the activation signal, executing processes associated with the node preceding the current node being injected with the activation signal. The node preceding the current node being injected with the activation signal may previously generated a deactivation signal.
In some embodiments, the method may further include receiving signals at the current node from every immediate preceding node of the plurality of nodes connected to the current node, and in response to the activation signal being injected, waiting at the current node to receive an updated signal from the node preceding the current node being injected with the activation signal and further waiting at the current node to receive updated signals from nodes that connect the node being injected and the current node, and executing processes associated with the current node in response to receiving the updated signals.
These and other features and aspects of the embodiments may be better understood with reference to the following drawings, description, and appended claims.
References will now be made in detail to various embodiments, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. The embodiments described are for illustrative purposes only and it will be understood that these various embodiments are not intended to limit the scope. On the contrary, the embodiments are intended to cover alternatives, modifications, and equivalents, which may be included within the scope of the appended Claims. Furthermore, in the following detailed description of various embodiments, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the claims. However, it will be evident to one of ordinary skill in the art that the claims may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well known methods, procedures, components, and circuits have not been described in detail as not to unnecessarily obscure aspects of the embodiments.
Some sections of the detailed descriptions that follow are presented in terms of procedures, logic blocks, processing, and other symbolic representations of operations on data bits within a computer memory. These descriptions and representations are the means used by those skilled in the data processing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. In the present application, a procedure, logic block, process, or the like, is conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of operations or steps or instructions leading to a desired result. The operations or steps are those utilizing physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, although not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated in a computer system or computing device. It has proven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as transactions, bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, samples, pixels, or the like.
It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unless specifically stated otherwise as apparent from the following discussions, it is appreciated that throughout the present disclosure, discussions utilizing terms such as “receiving,” “processing,” “re-processing,” “executing,” “re-executing,” “determining,” “identifying,” “waiting,” “transmitting,” “generating,” “propagating,” “providing,” “traversing,” “associating,” “injecting,” “initiating,” “invoking,” “updating,” or the like, refer to actions and processes of a computer system or similar electronic computing device or processor. The computer system or similar electronic computing device manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (electronic) quantities within the computer system memories, registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices.
Described herein are embodiments to execute a process and a flow, e.g., business process, loan application, purchase order approval process, new hire onboarding process, vacation approval, etc. The embodiments are described with respect to a business process throughout this application. It is appreciated that the description with respect to business process is exemplary and not intended to limit the scope of the embodiments.
A business process diagram (BPD) may be generated using various software programs where the user can graphically define various processing steps and their chronological order and their relationship in a business process, e.g., in a loan application, purchase order fulfillment process, software release process, employee evaluation process, etc. The BPD may include a plurality of processing nodes and/or a plurality of gateway nodes, where each processing node and/or gateway node may represent a step and where the plurality of processing nodes and/or the plurality of gateway nodes represent a sequence of processing steps and their relationship with respect to one another. It is appreciated that processing nodes and gateway nodes may be referred to as a node throughout this application. Unfortunately, the business process defined by a BPD may not correlate to the real world since the nodes, their relationship, their chronological ordering, etc., is defined at the time that the BPD is being designed and is therefore static. However, in reality, the business process may be executed in a different sequence due to the availability or lack of availability of parameters when certain nodes of a BPD are being executed, on the fly business decisions to skip or to re-process certain nodes, etc.
In an illustrative example, a BPD may include a plurality of nodes representing various stages associated with a home loan approval process. Each node may be associated with a different processing step, e.g., determination of whether an applicant has completed a home loan application, determination of the loan amount the applicant is qualified for, a determination of whether there was a property inspection, closing, etc.
In this example, the property inspection step may depend on the completion of the home loan application and a determination of the qualified loan amount. In one example, the home loan application step may be completed, but the determination of the qualified loan amount may be incomplete because of the unavailability of the applicant's income information, credit score, etc. In such a scenario, rather than delaying the home inspection until a qualified loan amount is determined, the embodiments described herein may change the processing sequence associated with the BPD and initiate the home inspection process prior to completion of the qualified loan amount determination. Further, at a later time when the applicant's credit score and income information becomes available, the embodiments may modify the execution sequence of the BPD to determine the home loan qualification amount and further re-execute other steps in the BPD that depend on home loan qualification amount. Accordingly, the embodiments flexibly and dynamically change the execution sequence of a BPD by determining whether to wait for additional parameters to be received or whether to process the already received parameters without waiting to receive the additional parameters.
Referring now to
BPD 100A includes processing nodes 105, 115, 120, 125 and 140 and gateway nodes 110 and 130. Nodes may refer to processing nodes and/or gateway nodes throughout this application and as described herein may represent events, activities, processes and/or a combination of sub-processes in a process flow diagram. The gateways as described herein may represent a fork and/or junction in a process flow diagram that may be used to determine whether certain conditions are satisfied, whether parameters and/or inputs for follow on activities, events, etc. are available, and the like.
In this exemplary embodiment, the processing nodes may represent various steps during a loan process, e.g., processing node 105 may include gathering basic information about the applicant such as name, social security number, date of birth, etc. The gateway node 110 may be a decision whether the information provided by the applicant is sufficient or not, e.g., prior residential address of the applicant may not have been provided. In contrast, processing nodes 115, 120, and 125 may represent other steps during the loan process, e.g., property appraisal, applicant's credit score, inspection report, etc. It is appreciated that while this example is provided with respect to a loan process, the embodiments are not limited thereto. For example, the BPD may include a process flow diagram for answering a call at a call center, directing Internet traffic flow, directing vehicle traffic flow, etc.
In BPD 100A, activation signals and/or deactivation signals may be propagated downstream, e.g., from processing node 105 to gateway node 110 to processing node 120, etc. In some instances, the activation signal may be a signal configured to cause a node, e.g., a processing node or a gateway node, to process parameters and/or execute processes associated with that node. In some instances, the activation signal may indicate the availability of parameters for processing. For example, activation signal 155b may indicate to processing node 120 that the parameters associated with upstream processing nodes or gateway nodes, e.g., gateway node 110 or processing node 105, to be processed by processing node 120 are present. Similarly, activation signal 155c may indicate to gateway node 130 that parameters associated with the upstream processing nodes and upstream gateway nodes, e.g., processing nodes 120, 105 and gateway node 110, are present and can be processed by gateway node 130. In contrast, a deactivation signal (e.g., signal 160b in
In this exemplary embodiment, BPD 100A starts at processing node 105 by executing processes and/or process parameters associated with processing node 105. The activation signal 155a generated by processing node 105 is propagated to the gateway node 110. The gateway node 110 generates activation signal 155b, which is propagated to processing node 120. Processing node 120 processes parameters and generates activation signal 155c, which is propagated to the gateway node 130.
Gateway node 130 determines that it is also connected to another processing node and/or gateway node, e.g., processing node 125, from which it is waiting to receive a signal. In other words, the gateway node 130 is connected to a first immediate preceding processing node 120 and to a second immediate preceding processing node 125. It is appreciated that while the processing nodes 115 and 105 and the gateway node 110 are preceding nodes with respect to gateway node 130, they are not immediately preceding the gateway node 130 because they have intermediary nodes connected between them.
According to some embodiments, the gateway node 130 may determine whether to wait to receive a signal from its immediate preceding node, e.g., processing node 125, to process parameters or to process parameters without waiting any further to receive a signal from its immediate preceding node, e.g., processing node 125. It is appreciated that a processor may determine whether to wait to receive a signal or to proceed with processing based on heuristics. The heuristics may be based on various factors, e.g., threshold time lapse, possibility of receiving a signal from the immediate preceding node, number of inputs at the current node, etc.
In some embodiments, rather than waiting to receive a signal at a current node, e.g., a processing node or a gateway node such as gateway node 130, from an immediately preceding node, e.g., node 125, it is determined whether there is a possibility of receiving an activation signal from the preceding node(s), e.g., preceding processing node and/or gateway nodes such as nodes 125, 115, etc. The possibility of receiving an activation signal may be determined by reverse traversal of the nodes, e.g., the processing nodes and/or the gateway nodes (shown by dashed lines) preceding the current node which happens to be gateway node 130. That is, the BPD is traversed from a current node, e.g., gateway node 130, that is waiting to receive a signal, to other preceding nodes, e.g., processing nodes such as processing nodes 125, 115 and/or gateway nodes, in the BPD to identify a live node, e.g., node 115. A live node is a node, e.g., a processing node or a gateway node, that has received a signal, e.g., activation signal, deactivation signal, etc., from its preceding nodes and/or gateways, e.g., gateway 110, but has not generated a signal, e.g., activation signal, deactivation signal, etc., yet.
Once a live node is identified, it is determined whether there is a possibility that the identified live node can generate an activation signal. If it is determined that the live node could possibly generate an activation signal, then the current node, e.g., processing node or gateway node such as gateway 130, will wait, as shown in
Traversal as illustrated by
It is appreciated that wait time and execution time is reduced by traversing a process flow diagram because the node may proceed with its execution if it is determined that there is no possibility that a signal may be received from its preceding node. Further, the reverse traversal as described herein allows for dynamic changes in a process flow diagram, thereby better reflecting the real life scenario and allowing execution of a node to be skipped or performed without receiving all the signals from preceding nodes.
Referring now to
It is appreciated that certain nodes of BPD 200A may take longer to process than other nodes or gateways. As such, there might be a delay in transmitting a signal, e.g., activation signal, deactivation signal, etc., from one node to the next. For instance, in one embodiment, processing nodes 215 and 225 may take longer to execute and process in comparison to processing node 220. It is further appreciated that these delays may cause the processing of the BPD 200A to hang. For example, gateway node 230 may wait indefinitely or for a long time to receive an activation signal or deactivation signal from processing node 225 in addition to the already received activation signal 255c.
Waiting for a long time or indefinitely, at gateway node 230, to receive a signal from processing nodes 215 and 225 may be unnecessary especially when the processing by processing nodes 215 and 225 have no impact on the processing by gateway node 230 and its outcome. According to some embodiments, the gateway node 230 may determine whether to wait to receive a signal from its immediate preceding node, e.g., processing node 225, to process parameters or to process parameters without waiting any further to receive a signal from its immediate preceding node, e.g., processing node 225. It is appreciated that a processor may determine whether to wait to receive a signal or to proceed with processing based on heuristics. The heuristics may be based on various factors, e.g., threshold time lapse, possibility of receiving a signal from the immediate preceding node, number of inputs at the current node, traversing upstream from the current node to preceding nodes, etc. For example, processing by processing nodes 215 and 225 may have no impact on processing by gateway node 230 if the processing nodes 215 and 225 generate a deactivation signal because gateway node 230 has received parameters that it should process from the processing node 220 and there are no parameters to be processed based on processing nodes 215 and 225. Further, processing by processing nodes 215 and 225 may have no impact on processing by gateway node 230 and its outcome if parameters passed by processing nodes 215 and 225 to the gateway node 130 are not to be used in its processing. As such, the gateway node 230 may wait for a long time or indefinitely if it has received the activation signal 255c from processing node 220 but has not received any signal from processing nodes 215 and 225.
With reference to
Referring now to
Accordingly, by waiting for a given wait period (may or may not be predetermined), the creation of bottlenecks and/or a process hang at a node may be prevented. Further, by waiting for a predetermined wait period rather than for an indefinite period, the BPD may better express real-world business processes in which steps and activities are performed with the best available information at a given moment in time.
Referring now to
In this exemplary embodiment, BPD 300 includes processing nodes 305, 315, 325, 330, 335 and 350 and gateway nodes 310, 320, 340 and 345. It is appreciated that processing nodes and gateway nodes may be referred to generically as nodes throughout this application. In this exemplary embodiment, the processing nodes may represent various steps during a loan process, a process flow diagram for answering a call at a call center, directing Internet traffic flow, directing vehicle traffic flow, etc., as discussed with respect to
In an illustrative example, BPD 300 starts at processing node 305. Processing node 305 may transmit an activation signal 360a to gateway node 310 after processing node 305 completes its processing. In a similar manner, gateway node 310 may transmit an activation signal 360b to processing node 315 and an activation signal 360c to gateway node 320. In response to receiving the activation signals, processing node 315 and gateway node 320 initiate their respective processing. Once gateway node 320 completes its processing, activation signal 360d may be transmitted to processing node 330 and an activation signal 360e may be transmitted to processing node 335.
According to some embodiments, at each node, e.g., processing node or gateway node, a processor may determine whether to wait to receive a signal from its immediate preceding node to process parameters or to process parameters without waiting any further to receive a signal from its immediate preceding node. It is appreciated that a processor may determine whether to wait to receive a signal or to proceed with processing based on heuristics. The heuristics may be based on various factors, e.g., threshold time lapse, possibility of receiving a signal from the immediate preceding node, number of inputs at the current node, traversing upstream from the current node to preceding nodes, etc.
In this exemplary embodiment, prior to initiating the processing by processing nodes 330 and 335, it may be determined whether each of these respective processing nodes have any additional immediately preceding connections. For example, it is determined that processing node 330 is not connected to any other immediate preceding node, e.g., immediately preceding processing node and/or gateway node, and thus, processing at processing node 330 is initiated. It is appreciated that while processing node 330 has a preceding gateway node 310, gateway node 310 is not immediately connected thereto because gateway node 320 is connected therebetween. On the other hand, it is determined that processing node 335 is connected to processing node 315 and that no signal has been received from processing node 315. According to one embodiment, processing node 335 waits until a signal is received from processing node 315 in order to initiate its processing. In other words, processing node 335 has two immediately preceding nodes, a gateway node 320 which has sent a signal 360e to processing node 335 and a processing node 315, which has not sent a signal to processing node 335. It is appreciated that while processing node 305 and gateway node 310 are preceding nodes with respect to the processing node 335, they are not immediately preceding nodes with respect to the processing node 335 because they are connected to processing node 335 via other intermediary nodes, e.g., gateway node 320 and processing node 315.
It is appreciated that in one embodiment, processing node 315 may wait for a given period to receive a signal from processing node 335 (as discussed with respect
Once the processing node 335 completes its processing, a signal, e.g., activation signal 360f, may be transmitted to the proceeding node, e.g., processing nodes or gateway nodes such as gateway node 340. It is appreciated that other nodes in the process flow diagram process information in a similar fashion until the process and their respective execution is complete.
Referring now to
In this exemplary embodiment, similar to
Similar to the processing node 435, when gateway node 440 receives the activation signal 460f from processing node 430, it is determined whether gateway node 440 is connected to any other immediately preceding node, e.g., immediately preceding processing node or gateway node, that is waiting to receive a signal from. In this example, it is determined that gateway node 440 is also connected to an immediate preceding processing node 435. As such, a reverse traversal may be performed from gateway node 440 to identify a live node associated with gateway node 440 in order to determine whether the gateway node 440 should wait to receive a signal or whether it should initiate its processing without receiving a signal from the live node. In a similar fashion as identification of live processing node 415 for processing node 435, processing node 435 may be identified as the live node for gateway node 440. It is appreciated that processing node 415 may be identified as a live node for gateway node 440 as well. In this example, since processing nodes 435 and 415 have both received activation signals 460e and 460b respectively, then it is determined that there is a possibility that each of those nodes will generate an activation signal. As such, gateway node 440 waits to receive a signal from processing node 435.
It is appreciated that the discussion in
In contrast, processing node 435 initiates its processing if gateway node 410 generated a deactivation signal 475b to node 415, as shown in
Referring now to
Referring now to
In this exemplary embodiment, the processing nodes may represent various steps during a loan process, a process flow diagram for answering a call at a call center, directing Internet traffic flow, directing vehicle traffic flow, etc., as discussed with respect to
In an illustrative example with reference to
Processing at processing node 535 is initiated because processing node 535 has received signals, activation signal 560e and deactivation signal 575d, from all of its immediately preceding nodes, e.g., processing nodes and/or gateway nodes. As presented above, gateway node 520 and processing node 515 are immediately preceding nodes for processing node 535 while gateway node 510 and processing node 505 are merely preceding nodes and not immediately preceding nodes for processing node 535. A signal, e.g., activation signal 560h, may be generated and transmitted from processing node 535 to gateway node 540.
After processing node 535 completes its processing, an activation signal 560i may be injected at processing node 515, as illustrated in
In this example, the injection of activation signal 560i causes processing node 515 to re-process. As such, processing node 515 may transmit updated signals, e.g., activation signals 560j and 560k, to processing nodes 525 and 535, respectively. In response to receiving the updated signals, processing nodes 525 and 535 determine whether any additional incoming signals are expected from immediately preceding nodes, e.g., immediately preceding processing nodes and/or immediately preceding gateway nodes. Processing by nodes based on the updated information may be performed in a similar fashion, as described with respect to FIGS. 3 and 4A-4C.
It is appreciated that by allowing an injection signal at a node, e.g., at a processing node and/or a gateway node, the sequence of steps may be dynamically changed without requiring a user or a system to redesign the process flow diagram and without a need to re-execute every gateway node and processing node.
Referring now to
Signals are transmitted and propagated to the nodes, e.g., processing nodes and gateway nodes, in a similar fashion described with respect to
Referring now to
Referring now to
Although
It is further appreciated that a signal may be injected in a process flow diagram by a user via a graphical user interface displaying the flow diagram, and/or may be dynamically injected by a computer system executing the process flow diagram. It is further appreciated that by allowing injection of a signal during runtime, the sequence and execution of nodes may be dynamically changed. It is further appreciated that injecting a signal in an unstructured BPD as illustrated in
It also appreciated that the BPD illustrated in
Referring now to
At step 702, receiving a signal at a current node from an immediately preceding node of a plurality of nodes of a process flow diagram. In some embodiments, the process flow diagram may be a business process diagram (BPD). In some embodiments, the current node may be a processing node and/or a gateway node associated with an activity, event, and/or some other flow process diagram modeling language construct. In some embodiments, parameters associated with the current node may be executed by a server and/or a computing device executing the process flow diagram.
In some embodiments, the signal received by the current node may be a deactivation signal and/or an activation signal as described herein. It is appreciated that a signal, e.g., activation signal, deactivation signal, etc., may be a token, a message, a command, an indication, etc. In some embodiments, the signal is received at the current node after the immediately preceding node completes processing parameters associated with the immediately preceding node.
At step 704, in response to receiving the signal from the immediately preceding node, it is determined whether the current node is connected to another immediately preceding node. In some embodiments, this determination may be made by sending a signal and/or a query from the current node to other nodes in the BPD. In some embodiments, this determination may be made by accounting for the number of incoming processing paths to the current node. In some embodiments, the current node may execute a program specific command to determine whether any other nodes are connected to the current node. If it is determined that the current node is not connected to another immediately preceding node, then method 700 proceeds to step 712 (shown in
At 706, it is determined whether the current node received a signal, e.g., an activation signal, deactivation signal, etc., from the immediately preceding node identified in step 706. If a signal is received, then method 700 proceeds to step 712 (
At step 708, it is determined whether to wait to receive a signal from the immediately preceding node identified at step 706 prior to processing the parameters. In some embodiments, a reverse traversal from the current node may be performed as described herein to identify a live node. It is determined whether the live node can possibly generate an activation signal. If the identified live node can generate an activation signal, then the current node waits to receive a signal from the immediately preceding node identified in step 706 (step 710 shown in
In some embodiments, rather than performing a reverse traversal, the current node may wait to receive a signal from the immediately preceding node identified in step 706 for a period of time as described above in
In some embodiments, the determination whether to wait (step 710) and waiting to receive a signal may include a combination of performing a reverse traversal as described herein and waiting for a signal for a given wait period. It is appreciated that in some embodiments, the current node may wait to receive a signal from the immediately preceding node if it is determined that no signal has been received from the incoming processing path to the current node.
Referring now to
At step 802, a current node of a process flow diagram may receive signals, e.g., activation signal, deactivation signal, from every immediately preceding node. In some embodiments, the process flow diagram may be a BPD as described herein. In some embodiments, the current node of the process flow diagram may receive signals in a similar fashion as nodes 535 and 635 of
At step 804, it is determined whether a node preceding the current node has been injected with a signal that can modify the behavior of the system, e.g., a deactivation signal changed to an activation signal, an activation signal changed to a deactivation signal, etc. In some embodiments, this determination is made by performing a reverse traversal as described herein from the current node to nodes preceding nodes to identify a node injected with a signal. In some embodiments, this determination is made in a similar fashion as described in
If it is determined at step 804 that a node preceding the current node has not been injected with a signal, then method 800 proceeds to step 806 to process parameters associated with the current node. Otherwise, method 800 proceeds to step 808 to determine whether to wait to receive an updated signal from the node preceding the current node being injected with the signal. If the node preceding the current node is injected with a deactivation signal, then it is determined not to wait to receive an updated signal at the current node. As noted above, the deactivation signal may indicate that a processing step is supposed to be skipped in a process flow diagram, may indicate the unavailability of parameters and/or inputs for processing, etc. In this exemplary embodiment, method 800 proceeds back to step 806 to process parameters associated with the current node without waiting to receive an updated signal from the node preceding the current node injected with the signal.
In some embodiments, if the node preceding the current node is injected with an activation signal, then method 800 proceeds to step 808 to wait to receive an updated signal from the node preceding the current node that is injected with the activation signal. In some embodiments, the current node waits indefinitely until an updated signal is received. In some embodiments, the current node waits for a given wait period.
Once the current node receives the updated signal, method 800 proceeds to step 810 to process parameters associated with the current node with the updated information. In some embodiments, the current node may process the current node with the updated information in a similar fashion as nodes 535 and nodes 635 of
Referring now to
Additionally in various embodiments, computing system environment 900 may also have other features/functionality. For example, computing system environment 900 may also include additional storage (removable and/or non-removable) including, but not limited to, magnetic or optical disks or tape. Such additional storage is illustrated by removable storage 908 and non-removable storage 910. Computer storage media includes volatile and nonvolatile, removable and non-removable media implemented in any method or technology for storage of information such as computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data. Computer readable medium 904, removable storage 908 and nonremovable storage 910 are all examples of computer storage media. Computer storage media includes, but is not limited to, RAM, ROM, EEPROM, flash memory or other memory technology, expandable memory (e.g. USB sticks, compact flash cards, SD cards), CD-ROM, digital versatile disks (DVD) or other optical storage, magnetic cassettes, magnetic tape, magnetic disk storage or other magnetic storage devices, or any other medium which can be used to store the desired information and which can be accessed by computing system environment 900. Any such computer storage media may be part of computing system environment 900.
In some embodiments, computing system environment 900 may also contain communications connection(s) 912 that allow it to communicate with other devices. Communications connection(s) 912 is an example of communication media. Communication media typically embodies computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules or other data in a modulated data signal such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media. The term computer readable media as used herein includes both storage media and communication media.
Communications connection(s) 912 may allow computing system environment 900 to communicate over various networks types including, but not limited to, fibre channel, small computer system interface (SCSI), Bluetooth, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, Infrared Data Association (IrDA), Local area networks (LAN), Wireless Local area networks (WLAN), wide area networks (WAN) such as the internet, serial, and universal serial bus (USB). It is appreciated the various network types that communication connection(s) 912 connect to may run a plurality of network protocols including, but not limited to, transmission control protocol (TCP), user datagram protocol (UDP), internet protocol (IP), real-time transport protocol (RTP), real-time transport control protocol (RTCP), file transfer protocol (FTP), and hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP).
In further embodiments, computing system environment 900 may also have input device(s) 914 such as keyboard, mouse, a terminal or terminal emulator (either directly connected or remotely accessible via telnet, SSH, http, SSL, etc.), pen, voice input device, touch input device, remote control, etc. Output device(s) 916 such as a display, a terminal or terminal emulator (either directly connected or remotely accessible via telnet, SSH, http, SSL, etc.), speakers, LEDs, etc. may also be included.
In one embodiment, computer readable storage medium 904 includes a BPD engine 922 and a signal injection engine 924. The BPD engine 922 is operable to execute a BPD as described in
It is appreciated that implementations according to embodiments that are described with respect to a computer system are merely exemplary and not intended to limit the scope of the embodiments. For example, embodiments may be implemented on devices such as switches and routers, which may contain application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), etc. It is appreciated that these devices may include a computer readable medium for storing instructions for implementing methods according to flow diagrams of
The foregoing description, for purposes of explanation, has been described with reference to specific embodiments. However, the illustrative discussion above is not intended to be exhaustive or limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in view of the above teachings.
This application claims the benefit of and priority to the U.S. provisional patent application No. 61/808,303, filed on Apr. 4, 2013, by Saxena et al. and U.S. provisional patent application No. 61/808,633, filed on Apr. 5, 2013, by Saxena et al., the disclosures of which are incorporated herein in their entirety and for all purposes.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61808303 | Apr 2013 | US | |
| 61808633 | Apr 2013 | US |
